In contact sports are physical injuries part of the game?
The revelation that Steve Thompson, hooker in England’s World Cup triumph in 2003, can’t remember what happened in the game is shocking. Thompson, like other stars of his time, Alex Popham and Michael Lipman, has been diagnosed with early-stage dementia and probable CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – the consequence of repeated blows to the head. That World Cup triumph was just seventeen years ago; Thompson is only in his mid-forties.
We have always known that rugby, in all its varieties and different codes, could damage the body. Awareness of how playing this (and other) contact sports may damage the brain, even destroying memory, is more recent. Professionalism, itself only a quarter of a century old in the Union game, has changed so much. We first noticed that players were bigger, heavier and (often) faster; that power had become the name of the game and, importantly, that improved handling skills meant that the ball was in play much longer with the corollary that there was more tackling to be done. Two-man tackles, one player going low, the other high, became more common, and till recently, the Laws of the game did nothing to deter or punish high tackles. We began to speak of collisions rather than tackles and of teams winning the “collision battle”. Moreover, professionalism meant that there were many more training sessions and training hours, with much of this training devoted to contact.
To be fair to lawmakers, awareness of the long-term danger of concussion and head injuries in general, has led to law changes. Any suspicion of concussion or damage to the head is now taken seriously. A player will be removed from the field for an HIA (Head Injury Assessment) and not permitted to return if he fails the examination. Even this is quite recent. Ten or a dozen years ago I remember Brian O’Driscoll and the great Australian flanker returning to the field when looking, even to the inexpert eye, decidedly groggy.
Professionalism and all it entails has made the problem more severe. There’s a good side to this: the awareness of the problem and the realisation that it must be addressed. Eddie Jones says he believes that the game has adapted to the problems of concussion and is leading the way in terms of player safety in contact sports. You may say he would say that, wouldn’t he; he has a dog in the fight.
Yet he may be at least half-right. The trouble is we don’t know what further measures are desirable, even necessary; and here there is disagreement. What about hard contact sessions in training? Don’t these aggravate the danger? Perhaps they do. Lots of injuries occur in training, some serious. On the other hand, the Welsh and Lions centre, Jamie Roberts, raises what he calls “the ultimate paradox”. Yes, you get injuries in training, but without hard contact training sessions, your body is unprepared for the reality of match-day and injuries, often severe ones, become more likely. Roberts – a Doctor of Medicine often used by his coach Warren Gatland as a crash-ball centre, carrying deep into the opposition defence and inviting the tackle – speaks with hard-earned authority.
Laws have been revised to make the game safer. Further revisions may be necessary. Making a two-man tackle illegal is one suggestion. Changing the law relating to possession at the breakdown may be another. The present law actually encourages the tackle high up on the chest – a tackle that so easily slips higher – and it does so because, if the tackled player is held up and the ball isn’t grounded, the resulting scrum is granted to the tackling side. In this way, the classic low tackle which sees the ball grounded is discouraged.
Reducing the number of permitted replacements is a proposal supported by many. I think this would indeed improve the flow of the game because gaps would appear as players get tired. Whether it would make it safer is doubtful. Tired players are more likely to be injured.
It is obvious that rugby has questions to address, and that it is in its own interest to seek and find effective answers. If it is perceived as a dangerous sport likely to damage health and destroy minds even years after retirement from the game, many parents are going to be unwilling to allow their children to engage in rugby. This is understandable.
Yet the truth is no matter what measures are taken, rugby will always be a sport in which players get injured and suffer what may sometimes be permanent damage to their physical or long-term mental health. In this respect, it is like many other sports and outdoor activities. Riding a horse is dangerous. Winter sports are dangerous. Mountaineering is dangerous; even hill-walking can be dangerous. Riding a motor-bike or driving a racing-car is dangerous. And so on. You can add what you please to the list.
What should also be considered are not only the pleasure and satisfaction to be had from such activities, but the possible consequences of being denied the opportunity to engage in them. Much in this strange year has been said about mental health and the damage that may have been done by the experience of lockdown, and other prohibitions, to the mental health of many, and especially of young people. Denying people possibly dangerous activities may be bad for them. On the other hand, rugby, like most other sports, gives to those who engage in it at any level great and enduring pleasure. It enriches their life.
Those who play – certainly those who do so at the elite level – are now aware of the risks, just as every jockey who canters up to the starting-stalls or put his horse at a steeplechase fence dices with injury and even death. You can be killed falling down the stairs. That possibility doesn’t persuade many that considerations of safety require them to live in a ground-floor flat.